Pablo Valbuena’s Wall Animation

Animation is such a ubiquitous part of our contemporary lives that it can no longer be confined to mere screen projection. It increasingly appears all around us and has become part of the fabric of our everyday lives. Over the past year, I’ve been pointing out examples of artists who use real-world settings either as a canvas for creating animation or as a place to project finished works. These artists include Blu, Fons Schiedon and Karolina Sobecka.

Pablo Valbuena is another artist who can be added to the list. Valbuena pushes it further than these other artists and actually manages to alter our perception of real-world space through his animation. To get a sense of what I’m talking about, check out this piece he created in the Netherlands:

For the full effect of this piece, see the official video on Pablo’s website. His indoor experiments are equally mesmerizing. For all the talk of “stereoscopic 3D” animated features, all those films are still being projected onto a single surface . Valbuena is pursuing a more honest and exciting form of 3D animation by using three-dimensional space as his work canvas.

On his website, Valbuena offers the following explanation of what he’s trying to accomplish through his work:

“This project is focused on the temporary quality of space, investigating space-time not only as a three dimensional environment, but as space in transformation. For this purpose two layers are produced that explore different aspects of the space-time reality. On the one hand the physical layer, which controls the real space and shapes the volumetric base that serves as support for the next level. The second level is a virtual projected layer that allows controlling the transformation and sequentiality of space-time.

“The blending of both levels gives the impression of physical geometry suitable of being transformed. The orverlapping produces a three-dimensional space augmented by a transformable layer suitable to be controlled, resulting in the capacity through the installation of altering multiple dimensions of space-time.”

The artist’s statement leaves me a bit cold â€”I’d just call it “projected trompe-l’Å“il” and get on with the fun.
And fun it is! The technical execution of this piece is mind-boggling. And Amid’s right, you gotta go to the website to really appreciate it. I really really wish I could see it live.

Cool stuff!

http://igallo.blogspot.com/ Irene

Open Ended Group has als done some amazing site-specific animation — projected on street corners, on cathedrals, in tandem with dance groups like Bill T. Jones and Merce Cunningham.

Those are fantastic!
The videos on the websites speak for themselves. Stunning.
Thanks for posting this.

matt

Great post Amid!

George

Good, Amid. Concrete, site-specific animation springing up like weeds in sidewalk cracks. Irene’s comment reminded me of Open Ended Group’s piece “Pedestrians” projected onto the floor of a gallery (Eyebeam) allowing viewers to gaze down from a bird’s eye view onto little people tramping around an urban space. Very spooky.